When José Mourinho arrived at Old Trafford in July there was a strong feeling among fans that the glory days were returning for the first time since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement in 2012, especially after another £140m was spent in the summer.

However, despite a first League Cup triumph in seven years, there hasn’t been much to cheer about in his first campaign as manager after another lacklustre league performance, which has left the prospect of Champions League next season in doubt.

Fan writer Alex Turk explains why he believes Manchester United have failed to live up to the pre-season hype.

Far too many wasted chances

United have attempted 499 efforts on goal in the Premier League this season but have the fourth worst conversion rate in the top flight with only Southampton, Middlesbrough and Hull City below them.

When it comes to clear cut chances, the Reds are the least effective in front of goal out of all 20 clubs after scoring just over a third while main man Zlatan Ibrahimović has spurned the most 'big chances' in the league with a total of 19 wasted opportunities.

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An inability to turn draws into wins at home

12. That’s the number of draws Manchester United have succumbed to this term, literally nearly 50% of league matches have ended in a stalemate. That’s not the worst part though, nine have occurred at Old Trafford with five of those against bottom half opposition.

The number of ties has even made the fact that the team are without a Premier League loss since October and are unbeaten in 20 top division clashes seem unimpressive, that’s how bad the situation has got.

The most frustrating thing about this current debacle is that Mourinho’s side have been the more superior in most of these matches, however, a distinct lack of cutting edge has proven tremendously costly. In pure José Mourinho fashion, they’ve lost the joint-least amount of league fixtures and would certainly be challenging for the title as expected if the team mentality was right.

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Heavily reliant on Zlatan Ibrahimović

Despite Mourinho having attackers such as Wayne Rooney, Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford at his disposal, Zlatan Ibrahimović has netted 37% of United’s league goals in 2016/2017 (16).

To emphasise how important the big Swede is, his closest competitor in the goal scoring table is Juan Mata who has only put the ball into the net on six occasions.

It’s not just the league where the 35-year-old has been tremendously influential though, with 27 goals and eight assists in all competitions it’s safe to say that the self-proclaimed ‘God of Manchester’ has made a massive contribution to the club as they’ve reached the latter stages of competitions this year.